Thin Ice: An Inspector Gunna Mystery (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 5)

by Quentin Bates

  ‘So what now?’ Magni asked.

  ‘Don’t know.’ Össur sighed. ‘I just don’t know.’

  Tinna Lind came in from the bathroom and huddled next to Magni, shaking out the double duvet over their shoulders.

  ‘What’s the plan, boys?’

  Össur glared at her. ‘How do we know there are no flights from Akureyri?’

  ‘Because there aren’t,’ she snapped back. ‘I spent two summers working for a travel company and I know. It’s not difficult to work out. There are flights to Britain, Germany, Denmark and Holland during the summer; June, July and August only. The last flights are always the first week in September. There’s no point running flights when there aren’t any tourists.’

  ‘I thought there were.’

  Tinna Lind spoke to him as if explaining things to a child. ‘Look, you can book a flight from Akureyri outside the tourist season if you want to, but it’ll land at Keflavík and connect with an overseas flight there.’

  ‘The thing is,’ Magni said, munching a dry biscuit. ‘If there’s a flight from Akureyri and it connects at Keflavík, do we go through passport control, customs and all that at Akureyri where we get on the plane, or at Keflavík, where it connects?’

  ‘Akureyri, I think,’ Tinna Lind said. ‘I’m not entirely sure. But in any case, air travel is so tight these days that there are probably checks at both.’

  ‘Shit. It’s all turned to fucking shit,’ Össur cursed. ‘All because that useless fuckwit Árni couldn’t get there on time.’

  ‘And now he’s dead.’

  ‘Yeah. And I’m wondering why. That evil bastard Alli the Cornershop must have got to him. It has to be Alli.’

  ‘So who’s this Alli, then?’ Tinna Lind asked, biting into an apple.

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘Of course I don’t know. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked, would I? Listen, I’m not a criminal like you. I’ve no idea who these gangsters are.’

  Össur took a deep breath. ‘Alli the Cornershop is one of half a dozen people who control most of the dope. He gets some of it brought in by mules who swallow it wrapped in plastic and shit it out, or else they just carry it in their luggage or whatever. Mostly it comes hidden away in shipping containers and things like that. There’s all kinds of ways of doing it. He also has a couple of growing operations here and there, and he does girls as well.’

  ‘He sounds a fantastic character,’ Tinna Lind said with distaste. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Because, prissy miss, I’ve known Alli for years, doing deals and keeping an eye on a few things for him. He’s ruthless, let me tell you.’

  ‘And then you decided to pop your fingers in the till and run for it?’

  ‘Yeah. It was all planned out, and if that fuckwit Árni had turned up on the dot, we’d have been home and dry and way out of Alli’s reach.’

  ‘So I suppose he’s not going to welcome you with open arms?’ Magni asked.

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Alli’s going to want payback and it’s going to hurt.’

  ‘Only if he catches us.’ Magni thought for a moment. ‘Listen I know it’s a stupid question, but what if you gave yourself up? You could grass on him and the court might let you off?’

  ‘What? Murder?’

  ‘Yeah, well. I suppose there is that,’ Magni admitted. ‘The coppers tend to take a dim view of that.’

  ‘But apart from all that,’ Tinna Lind broke in. ‘We need to be on the move soon, so are we going north to Akureyri or back to Reykjavík and try and get a flight from Keflavík?’

  ‘Akureyri’s safer for the moment, I guess,’ Magni said. ‘Nobody will expect us to go that way.’

  ‘Unless your mother spills the beans, and you can bet she’s in a police station right now singing her heart out,’ Össur said bitterly. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have let her out of our sight.’

  ‘What’s done is done. So do we do a double bluff and go to Reykjavík? It’s easier to hide away in a bigger place, but there’ll be more people looking for you there,’ Magni pointed out.

  ‘Looking for us, you mean. If they pick me up, they’ll pick you up as well.’

  ‘On the whole, I reckon I’d rather meet the law than Alli the Cornershop.’

  Magni let the Skoda warm up, and by the time they trooped through the puddles of meltwater, their breath steaming in the cool air, the car was cosy and Össur let out a sigh of relief as he sank into the seat behind Magni.

  He reversed the car into a turn and let it bump down the track, its underside scraping on the hardened snow.

  ‘Where is it then?’ he asked, stopping the car and turning around in his seat. ‘North or south?’

  Össur shrugged and huddled deep into his coat.

  Tinna Lind reached down and took a coin from the car’s ashtray. She flipped it in the air and they watched it spin until she caught it neatly in the palm of one hand and slapped it on the back of the other, holding her hand over the coin.

  ‘You call,’ she ordered, looking at Össur.

  Össur’s brows knitted. ‘Heads we go north, tails we go south.’

  Tinna Lind lifted her hand and looked at the coin.

  ‘Reykjavík, here we come,’ she said, dropping the coin back in the ashtray and Magni wondered if it really had been tails or if it had been her decision.

  ‘I suppose we’d better play safe and go the long way round again,’ he said.

  Erna sat upright in a leather chair in her own living room. The radio burbled in an undertone and a glass of water with a couple of ice cubes and a slice of lime in it stood on the table in front of her.

  Bogi Sveinsson sat at the end of the sofa, Erna’s hand in his. ‘Last night. I got a call late last night,’ he said happily. ‘So I went and got her.’

  Eiríkur wondered what had happened. Erna had a poise to her that didn’t ring true for someone who’d been held hostage for a week in a remote hotel. Her hair was pristine and her makeup had been artfully applied. He thought he could see lines of fatigue at the corners of her eyes, but not having anything to compare with made it difficult to tell.

  ‘I guess you have quite a story to tell,’ he said.

  Erna’s eyes looked blank and she dropped Bogi’s hand to reach for the glass of water. She sipped demurely.

  ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘How do you mean? I hope you can give me an account of what happened to you over the last week. You disappeared a week ago today.’

  ‘I really don’t remember very much.’

  Erna’s hand dropped over the arm of the chair and Bogi again cradled it.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Eiríkur asked. ‘You don’t recall anything? Do you recall where you were when you met the two men?’

  ‘In Hafnarfjördur. In the car park outside the shopping centre. They got in the car behind us and told us to drive.’

  ‘And where did they make you go?’

  ‘I’m not sure. They just gave directions and I went where they said. We went out of the city. I’m not sure where.’ Erna sighed. ‘I’m exhausted,’ she said, ‘but Bogi said we should call the police.’

  ‘I would have thought you would have called last night, especially as your daughter is still missing. Locating her is our main priority, and anything you can tell us is of paramount importance. Have you any idea where she might be?’

  Erna shook her head. ‘Absolutely none.’

  ‘All right. The men who abducted you. What can you tell me about them.’

  ‘One of them had a gun. I didn’t believe it was real and then he fired it. It was deafening,’ she said with a shudder, and Bogi squeezed her hand. ‘I was petrified.’

  ‘Can you describe them?’

  ‘One of them was quite short and ugly, with grey hair. The other one was a big man, quite a bit younger, I think.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘About your age, probably.’

  ‘Did you hear names?’

  ‘The older
man’s name is Össur, I think. I’m not sure about the younger one.’

  ‘You didn’t hear them talking?’

  ‘No. The place we were must have been a hotel or a hostel. I stayed upstairs in the room as much as I could.’

  ‘And your daughter? Did she stay with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She was in another room? You were kept apart?’

  Erna nodded. ‘Not exactly kept apart. I chose to keep away from them as much as I could. The men frightened me, especially Össur, the older man, the one with the gun.’

  ‘Unfortunately we found the hotel only an hour or two after you must have left. This may sound an odd question,’ Eiríkur said, ‘but did you hear them say anything at all about why they were on the run? And why they car-jacked you and decided to hide away in the countryside?’

  ‘I think they had committed some crime – I’m not sure – or else they had been in a fight with someone. I seem to recall someone called Árni being mentioned, but I can’t be sure.’

  Eiríkur nodded, satisfied with an answer for the first time. ‘Were you mistreated at all? Molested?’

  ‘No. Not really. They were harsh, but they left us alone for the most part.’

  ‘But they took your car and your credit card, didn’t they? You gave them your security number?’

  ‘I thought it would be best, and it occurred to me that maybe you would be able to trace us when it was used.’

  Eiríkur smiled. ‘Exactly. We saw one of the men on CCTV buying fuel twice. Unfortunately he took care, so we couldn’t see him clearly enough to identify him. Can you tell me what happened yesterday? How come you managed to get away from the men but your daughter didn’t? Do you know where they went or where they were planning to go?’

  ‘We left the hotel in the afternoon when it was still light and we drove a long way. The younger man was driving and I sat in the back with Össur. He had a hand in the pocket where he had the gun the whole time. I was terrified he was going to use it if things went wrong. Anyway, we drove for a long time and I’m not sure where we went, but I recognized the old whaling station, so it must have been Hvalfjördur, and then we were at Borgarnes.’

  ‘And what happened there?’

  ‘They bought fuel again. We were all terribly hungry. It had been a very long day and they had an argument. The younger one said we should all just go to one of those cafeteria places and have something to eat. The older one didn’t like the idea, but the young one said it would be fine and nobody would notice them. So he gave in and we went for some food.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘While we were eating there was a television on, and there was a report on the news from the hotel, and pictures of myself and Tinna Lind. Össur was either angry or frightened, I couldn’t tell which, so he wanted to go. I said I had to go to the bathroom and then I crawled out of a window and hid. When I saw the car drive away with them in it, I went back inside and sat down again.’

  ‘I’m wondering why you didn’t call the police right away. That way they could have stopped them before they’d gone far.’

  Erna was silent and put her fingertips to her temples. ‘I don’t know. I think I was in shock. It was only when the place was closing that the waitress asked if I was all right, and I said I wasn’t, so she let me call Bogi.’ She smiled fondly at him. ‘And he came to rescue me.’

  ‘Now tell me,’ Eiríkur said, ‘how come your concern for your daughter doesn’t extend to informing the police right away?’

  Erna’s smile vanished.

  ‘It’s not as if you can just turn up at the airport and go. They don’t let you do that these days,’ Tinna Lind said. ‘It’s not like a bus. In any case, they’ll have your names, won’t they?’

  Össur scowled, huddled down low in the back seat, and chewed his fingernails as Mosfellsbær rolled past outside and the stream of traffic thickened steadily. It felt uncomfortable and welcoming at the same time to be approaching the city where he felt most at home but in which also lurked all kinds of hidden dangers.

  ‘So if we don’t go straight to the airport, where can we go?’

  ‘He’s right,’ Magni said. ‘We can’t just drive around all day.’

  Tinna Lind rubbed her hands together and thought.

  ‘Passports,’ she said finally. ‘I guess you guys have passports, but they won’t be any use to you now. You can bet anything you like that if your names show up at immigration, there’ll be red lights and alarm bells going off everywhere. So we all need to get passports. You guys are the criminals. Over to you,’ she said finally.

  ‘Ask him,’ Magni said, jerking his thumb at Össur in the back seat.

  Tinna Lind twisted herself around in her seat. ‘Ideas, Össur?’

  ‘It’s expensive. Alli will sell you a passport if you really need it, but it costs an arm and a leg.’

  ‘And Alli is the absolute last person in the world you want to be doing business with right now,’ Magni said.

  ‘Come on, you guys,’ Tinna Lind said. ‘You’re the brains here, but I’m the one doing your thinking for you.’

  ‘There is a guy we could try, but I’d have to call him,’ Össur said dubiously. ‘He’s not the kind of guy I’d want to meet anywhere quiet, if you get my meaning.’ He pulled a battered mobile phone from deep inside a pocket and peered at the little screen. ‘His number’s in this, but the battery’s flat.’

  ‘So we need a place to crash and somewhere to charge Össur’s phone,’ Magni said. ‘I think I can do that, but best behaviour from you two, all right? Especially you in the back.’

  ‘And internet,’ Tinna Lind added. ‘When we have names to travel under, we need to book flights online, and have a card to pay for them. D’you still have my mother’s card? Didn’t you use it last night to buy fuel?’

  ‘I still have it, but I didn’t use it,’ Magni said. ‘I used my own card for the fuel because I reckoned your mum’s card could be traced, and we daren’t use it to buy flights. Don’t worry. I’ll figure something out. I wonder what your mother has been telling the police?’

  Baldvin was sweating hard and looking increasingly uncomfortable as he shifted nervously in the chair opposite Helgi, who read back through his notes.

  ‘You spent all day at Alli’s house, as you usually do because you run errands for him. That evening you had a few too many to drink and fell over on the pavement outside, which is when you broke your teeth. You went to A&E that evening as well – my colleague is checking with the hospital records to see if your story balances with what they say,’ he said. ‘On Thursday night you were dosed up with painkillers, or so you say, and woke up at midday on Friday, again at Alli’s place.’ Helgi took off his glasses and tapped them against his chin. ‘It’s taken a long time to get there, but is all that correct?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s it.’

  Helgi opened the folder and took out a set of prints that he laid on the table in a pile.

  ‘Right. This is Alli’s VW Golf,’ he said, showing Baldvin the first print. ‘Last year’s model, isn’t it? Nice car.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘These were taken at the N1 filling station at the corner of Lækjargata just after ten on Thursday evening. That’s you pumping fuel there,’ he said and showed Baldvin the second print.

  There was a tremor in Baldvin’s voice. ‘Yeah. Alli asked me to take it up there and fill the tank.’

  ‘That doesn’t look like a man who reckons he was zonked out on painkillers,’ Helgi said as he placed a third picture in front of Baldvin. ‘He asked you to fill a can as well?’

  Baldvin hung his head as he saw the clear image of himself pumping fuel into a five-litre can.

  ‘I . . .’ He stuttered and paused, looking around the room.

  Helgi sat back. ‘Go on,’ he invited. ‘I can see from the CCTV that you were buying unleaded for the car and you pumped the same into the can. Unleaded petrol was the accelerant used at the house fire that killed Árni Sigurvinsso
n. So if we search the place you live in and Alli’s house, I’d bet good money we’ll find an empty petrol can with a few drops of unleaded in the bottom.’

  ‘Alli asked me to buy petrol. I don’t know what he wanted it for.’

  As the realization sank in, Baldvin’s face paled to the same washed-out colour as the wall behind him.

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re a suspect for the murder of Árni Sigurvinsson. You bought petrol. I reckon there was a dispute between Árni and Alli. You work for Alli as an enforcer. You’re not able to account convincingly for your movements from Thursday afternoon until Friday morning. Alli was at home, but that doesn’t mean to say you couldn’t have gone out quietly and done what you wanted to. Árni’s place is five minutes down the hill. You could have been there and back in ten, fifteen minutes.’

  ‘So you’re keeping me locked up?’

  ‘What would you do? The facts seem pretty much stacked against you, don’t they?’

  ‘So what is this place?’ Tinna Lind asked, looking around the apartment. It was a light, airy apartment, sparsely but comfortably furnished.

  ‘It belongs to a mate. Used to be married to my ex-wife’s sister years ago, so we share having both been married to crazy women.’

  ‘And he knows we’re here?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Magni said. ‘He’s an engineer on a seismic ship in Russia and he’s away for two months at a time. I reckon it’ll be a good while before he’s back.’

  ‘Not bad.’ She sank back into one of the deep armchairs. ‘So this is some kind of bachelor pad?’

  ‘It is now. He had a bit of a fling a year or so ago, so his girlfriend walked out in a huff and hasn’t been back.’

  ‘He doesn’t mind you staying here?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Magni said. ‘Y’know, I have a key and so I keep an eye on the place for him while he’s away, and we have an understanding that if I need to crash, then that’s no problem as long as I leave the place as I find it. Which might be a problem with Össur being such a dirty bastard,’ he added.

  ‘You mean you can use it as a shag pad if you get lucky?’ Tinna Lind asked sweetly.